Eli the Mad

Tales exist of a place that is both everywhere and nowhere, encompassing all realities and yet none of them. A place where time has no meaning, for it exists perpetually in infinity and whose lifespan measures in fractions of an eye’s blink. A place where a thaumaturgy apparatus is at home next to the rows of computer banks whirring while processing endless terabytes of information per second. The Control Room for Project Ark.

In this room that is not a room there are an impossible number of monitors, some technological wonders, some mere crystal balls. This place seems to utilize both magical and technological means to monitor the various Arks. Somewhere in this place that is not a place sits a lone figure, its outline only vaguely human. Watching. Waiting. The screens and foci all shift to show one old man, blind and struggling through the Ark and dying over and over.

“He still won’t capitulate.” The voice does not originate with the lone figure, but in the darkness behind it. Stentorian and rumbly it goes on. “We need him broken for him to be any use to us at all.”

The visible figure responds, breathy and nervous, “What do you command?”

“Caretaker protocols engage. Put this one on full rejuvenations and keep reproducing him and reinserting him into every single Ark we have running.”

The lone figure shivers. “That would drive –me- insane. This human has no idea what’s in store for him.” Pause. “I’m a bit curious as to how his brain is going to process seeing what every other version of him sees and not what’s in front of him at the moment, though.”  The figure stirs, tapping some screens directly, typing out commands on keyboards for others and mumbling esoteric and disturbing Words of Power to cast the necessary spells in other Arks. “Let there be an Eli for every Ark.”

On every single Ark in existence(and that’s quite a few, let me tell you) the sound of a zipper rends the silence(such as it is) of the various biomes that make up the Arks as reality itself folds in and a male human is thrust out of the tear and into the current world. Once more the zipper sound as the tear seals itself, vanishing.

The figure stirs to life as the crystal embedded in his arm flares to life, using magical or technological means (depending on the Ark) to thrust the personality that is Eli Clay into the empty husk. He vomits. A couple of times. Well, dry heaves. This body has no sustenance in it at the time of creation.

“About goddamn time they did this.” He mutters and stands, smiling gently. Milky white eyes roam the landscape as Eli scans the immediate area and then sets off to do…….?